Month: June 2012

Thoughts offered on patriotic services

Randall Bales will never forget the day Abraham Lincoln showed up for worship on the Fourth of July at University Baptist Church in San Antonio. “No one knew he was coming, so we started the service like we normally would,” recalled the pastor. He had arranged for impersonator John Voehl to walk in from the back of the auditorium, offering a first-person account of his spiritual journey.

“His premise was that during the period of 1863 when [the outcome of] Gettysburg was uncertain, that Lincoln had a moment when he gave his life to Christ,” Bales recalled.

“Now, of course, a lot of that’s supposition, but that’s the premise in the testimony and he talked about prayer and being a leader relying on God. It was a wonderful weaving together of historical references in the Civil War era to the relationship one can have in Christ, so it had an evangelistic focus as well as patriotic and really worked out well.”

As the July 4 holiday approaches, Southern Baptist churches in Texas are finding creative ways to celebrate their freedom in Christ and the price that was paid for religious freedom in America.

At Houston’s Fallbrook Church, Boy Scout Troop 272 will post colors on the Sunday prior to July 4 and then members will sing the “Star Spangled Banner” as the American flag is waved.

Executive Pastor Olus R. Holder Jr. cited Romans 13 to reference God having ordained all governments as a rationale for the patriotic emphasis.

“God has ordained the United States of America to be a bearer of the gospel. We’re the beacon light for Christianity,” Holder told the TEXAN. While the Fourth of July represents freedom, he said, “From a church perspective, Jesus Christ is our spiritual freedom,” a concept the church will emphasize in the midst of the celebration.

At Northside Baptist Church in Highlands, the Sunday nearest the Fourth of July is an opportunity to “thank God for the good things about our country and speak out against the moral failings of our country,” stated Pastor David Brumbelow.

Brumbelow finds it strange that a practice he has seen in church all his life is now “vehemently challenged,” describing some “fretting over a patriotic service causing confusion over our allegiance to Christ and to our country.”

When his comments appeared last year in his “Gulf Coast Pastor” blog, all but one of those commenting were in agreement. But when the remarks were republished at “SBC Voices,” the contentious discussion that followed covered over 40 pages of posts.

“It seems that like the ‘public invitation’ and using the ‘sinner’s prayer,’ most criticism of having a patriotic worship service is more a criticism of the abuse, rather than the proper use of them,” Brumbelow wrote.

Brumbelow said it is easy to use an American cultural theme like Thanksgiving to teach Christian concepts to international students. “They can see believers praying for their country, striving to better their country,” he said, believing they’ll be inspired to do the same when returning to their own countries.

Sometimes the presence of national and state flags in a worship service can be confusing for visitors from other countries, shared Emi Millard, a member of Nassau Bay Baptist Church.

Several years ago her church prominently displayed an over-sized American flag during a Fourth of July service, prompting questions from Japanese visitors. Coming from a nation where the flag symbolizes worship of the emperor, the Christian couple found it troubling.

Millard explained the intent of celebrating “a nation founded by people who wanted to follow God freely,” easing the visitors’ concerns.

“It’s not about political correctness, but just being sensitive if you have international congregations,” she cautioned. “We can get so caught up in our excitement about being Americans that we forget to celebrate with humility and thankfulness.”

The daughter of a Japanese mother and American father, Millard moved to the U.S. to begin her college education at a Baptist school.

“This is a country that was born for independence. We never had a king or a dictator. We should teach the kids that these are freedoms we ought to be honoring and acknowledging,” she added.

The pastor of a Vietnamese congregation in a large Texas city is grateful for the freedom to worship in America. He travels to Vietnam often to preach and teach, but must minister within the restrictions of a communist government that registers churches.

And yet among his own congregation, he finds different opinions regarding patriotic celebrations. “Most don’t want to mix it with church. They consider that political and something personal you do at home,” he said.

Among the first wave of Vietnamese refugees fleeing persecution in 1975, a strong anti-communist perspective dominates, while those coming to America in the last five to 10 years have mixed feelings on such issues, he said. With so many community observances available on the Fourth of July, the church prefers to keep the focus on Christ, he said.

Francis Calimbahin, pastor of Caprock Church in Arlington, will use the upcoming Fourth of July to remind the multicultural congregation of the persecution of believers around the world. Although he immigrated from the Philippines over 20 years ago, most members are either first- or second-generation immigrants and include Hispanics, Africans, Puerto-Ricans, and Vietnamese.

“They are very American and understand freedom and the sacrifice people made,” Calimbahin said, adding that he finds no hesitation among the congregation to celebrate a patriotic holiday from a Christian perspective.

David Toledo, associate pastor of worship and creative arts at First Baptist Church of Keller, said he finds the Psalms to be full of references that give evidence for recognizing God’s blessings and commands in national matters.

“We need to provide our congregation the opportunity to thank God for his provisions for our nation and reaffirm our commitment to him,” he said, “but there is a delicate balance to be found.”

While God and country are synonymous for many people, Toledo finds that view coming out of popular culture and not the Bible. “It is far too easy to fall into the trap of sentimentality and lose sight of the purpose of our worship services.”

He designs worship services focused on God and his work of salvation through Christ. On national holidays like Independence Day and Veteran’s Day, he includes appropriate Scripture references and emphasizes hymns such as “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” or “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”

When singing “America the Beautiful” and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” Toledo makes sure the congregation sings more than just the first stanza as secular gatherings would do.

“Many of our patriotic songs have stanzas that are directed towards God explicitly, so I use them as an opportunity to teach our congregation and facilitate our worship services.”

He said he stays away from “God Bless the USA” and “God Bless America,” citing what he said is a lack of depth needed for worship services. “I never want my congregation to focus on our nation and lose sight of God,” he insisted.

Special concerts and other events outside of Sunday morning worship can provide an appropriate time to emphasize patriotism musically, Toledo suggested. “This allows our congregation to express the appreciation in a way that doesn’t take away from the corporate worship experience.”

A separate patriotic event that draws the community often lends itself to an evangelistic opportunity.

“Anytime you’ve got a big group of people at church, no matter what it is—share the gospel somehow,” reminded Jack Harris, personal evangelism associate at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. “Make it fit. Be culturally adaptive,” he advised, recalling that the apostle Paul used secular occasions to preach Christ.

“The greatest freedom in the world is freedom in Christ,” he said. “It’s not a tricky thing to make that application. People try and make it much more complicated than it is.”

He suggests the church host a picnic near the Fourth of July and use the occasion to invite friends and neighbors of members. The pastor can get up, take about 10 minutes and share the gospel.

In her latest “Fresh Ideas” column, Baptist writer Diana Davis of Indiana offers other suggestions to churches celebrating the Fourth of July:

—If your church has a great view of local fireworks, post an outdoor sign inviting neighbors to bring lawn chairs and enjoy them there. As church members serve watermelon and sodas, they visit with guests and invite them for worship on Sunday.

—Plan a fun, small-townish kids’ parade for your community. Get permission to block the street in front of the church, or stage the parade route in the parking lot. Advertise it everywhere, and be sure to create a Facebook event so members can invite friends.

—Invite community leaders to attend a Christian Citizenship Sunday worship service. Ask them to arrive early at the pastor’s office for prayer and seating instructions. During the worship service, introduce them and invite church members to stand to indicate they’ll continue to pray for the leaders.

—Take a moment during worship to invite worshipers to kneel and ask God’s blessings on our country.

—Print a list of government leaders, from school board members to the president of the United States. Invite church members to select a leader, send an encouraging note, and commit to pray for that leader this year.

3 views of church-state relations explained

Historically, governments have taken one of three approaches to church-state relations, according to Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land. In his book “The Divided States of America? What Liberals and Conservatives are Missing in the God and Country Shouting Match!” he labels the approaches avoidance, acknowledgment and accommodation.

AVOIDANCE: According to this view, all recognition of the church should be removed from government, creating a secular society as in modern France.

John Wilsey, assistant professor of history and Christian apologetics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Havard School for Theological Studies in Houston, said many who champion “separation of church and state” espouse the avoidance view. Yet neither the majority of America’s Founding Fathers nor its early religious dissenters—including Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists—held this perspective, he said.

Early American dissenters “knew that a separation of church and state, a wall of separation would eventually lead to a limiting of government as well as religion,” said Wilsey, author of “One Nation Under God? An Evangelical Critique of Christian America.” Under the avoidance view, “government can’t say anything or do anything to acknowledge religion, and the church can’t do anything at all in the public square, which inhibits religious freedom.”

Some believe avoidance is necessary to accommodate the broad variety of religious convictions in America today. But there is a better way, according to Wilsey.

Most Americans assume “separation of church and state” is “what the Founders intended from the very beginning,” he said. “And certainly some did. Thomas Jefferson favored that. But in terms of the religious dissenters who gained us religious freedom during the Revolutionary period and shortly thereafter, that was not really the intent.”

In terms of Baptists, Land in a 2008 speech at Criswell College, quoted Roger Williams, an early American Baptist writing decades before the Constitution was drafted, that there must be a “wall of separation” to keep the “wilderness of the world” from encroaching upon the “garden of the church.”      

Later, that “wall of separation” language made its way into Thomas Jefferson’s famous 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, defending the Baptists’ from oppression as a religious minority in Connecticut. Yet Land said Jefferson obviously didn’t intend for a radical “separation” like that championed by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union or Americans United.

Land told the Criswell audience that if Jefferson had intended that government avoid religious expression in its domain, it is curious that Jefferson, the Sunday after penning his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, attended Sunday worship services in the U.S. House of Representatives chamber led by his friend John Leland, a Baptist pastor from Connecticut.
    
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This view argues that government should affirm a majority religion, as with the government of Iran affirming Islam.

“The problem with that is that it’s going to deny religious freedom to anyone who doesn’t hold [the officially recognized] view, anybody who’s not subscribed to that religion that’s acknowledged by the state,” Wilsey said. “You cannot have true religious freedom in a state that has an established church, or even an acknowledged church.”

Though America did not have an official state church, Protestantism served as a de facto state religion until the second half of the 20th century, he said. This resulted in groups like Mormons, Roman Catholics and adherents of Native American religions being persecuted and having their religious freedoms impinged, Wilsey said.

Speaking at Criswell, Land said of this, “The last thing we as Baptists should want is government-sponsored religion. Government-sponsored religion is like getting a hug from a python.”

ACCOMMODATION: According to this view, all religious perspectives should be respected by government and citizens should understand the value of religion in America’s past, present and future. Religiously informed moral values should inform public policy discussions under the accommodation view.

Accommodation “is the ideal situation and certainly the intent in the First Amendment,” Wilsey said.
In early America, religious dissenters were highly involved in politics, arguing for their right to practice their faith without persecution and allowing their religion to inform their political views in the public square, he said.

“The government did not see that as a threat,” Wilsey said of the dissenters’ political involvement. “The government of course welcomed this. So I think that model that we had at the very beginning was the model we ought to try to recover today.”

Land said the accommodation position most closely honors the American Founders’ intent and historic Baptist principles.

“The accommodation position would say, ‘If the people in the community want to have a manger scene on the courthouse lawn, then they ought to be allowed to collect the money and buy a manger scene and the government should accommodate their wish by allowing its display at the appropriate Christmas time, and they should provide police protection for it and the lighting for it and possibly even the storage for it during the Christmas season,” Land explained.

“But that also means that if there are Jewish people in the community and they want to have a Menorah scene at the appropriate time in the Jewish calendar, then they ought to be able to have a Menorah celebrating Judaism as well. And if there are Muslims in that community, then at the appropriate time they ought to be allowed to display a Muslim scene. Accommodation means the government is an umpire. And the government makes sure that everybody plays fair.”

—With reporting by Jerry Pierce

Trustees reprimand Land, halt radio program over comments

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Two reprimands have been issued to Richard Land by the trustee executive committee of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

The ERLC trustee executive committee also is terminating Land's weekly call-in radio show—the venue where Land made comments about the Trayvon Martin killing that ignited intense controversy, prompting the formation of a trustee ad hoc investigative committee.

The ERLC, led by Land since 1988, must “redouble our efforts … to heal re-opened wounds,” the executive committee said of Land's on-air comments about the intrusion of politics into the Trayvon Martin case and his references to President Obama and the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson by name.

At the outset of its reprimands and broadcast termination, the trustee committee stated that Land's statements “were very hurtful and offensive to the Trayvon Martin family and to many in the African-American community, including hundreds of thousands of African-American Southern Baptists. Damage was done to the state of race relations in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

The two reprimands of Land by the ERLC trustee executive committee state:

“We reprimand Dr. Land for his hurtful, irresponsible, insensitive, and racially charged words on March 31, 2012 regarding the Trayvon Martin tragedy. It was appropriate for Dr. Land to issue the apology he made on May 9, 2012 and we are pleased he did so. We also convey our own deepest sympathies to the family of Trayvon Martin for the loss they have suffered. We, too, express our sorrow, regret, and apologies to them for Dr. Land's remarks. We are particularly disappointed in Dr. Land's words because they do not accurately reflect the body of his work over a long career at the ERLC toward racial reconciliation in the Southern Baptist Convention and American life. We must now redouble our efforts to regain lost ground, to heal re-opened wounds, and to realize the dream of a Southern Baptist Convention that is just as diverse as the population of our great Nation.

“We further reprimand Dr. Land for quoting material without giving attribution on the Richard Land Live! (RLL) radio show, thereby unwisely accepting practices that occur in the radio industry, and we acknowledge that instances of plagiarism occurred because of his carelessness and poor judgment. We examined Dr. Land's written work during the investigation, and we found no instances of plagiarism in any of Dr. Land's written work. As a Christian, a minister of the Gospel of our Lord, and as President of the ERLC, Dr. Land should have conformed to a higher standard. We expect all future work of the ERLC to be above reproach in that regard,” the trustee executive committee said regarding plagiarism allegations against Land over material he failed to attribute to a Washington Times columnist on the March 31 broadcast.

Regarding the call-in radio show, the ERLC trustee executive committee stated:

“… we have carefully considered the content and purpose of the Richard Land Live! broadcast. We find that they are not congruent with the mission of the ERLC. We also find that the controversy that erupted as a result of the March 31 broadcast, and related matters, requires the termination of that program. We hereby announce that the Richard Land Live! radio program will end as soon as possible within the bounds of our contracts with the Salem Radio Network.”

Land, in a statement issued to Baptist Press after the release of the reprimands and broadcast termination, stated:

“I have said on numerous occasions that I believe in trustee oversight and governance. I am under the authority of the trustees elected by the Southern Baptist Convention. This whole process was conducted in a Christian manner by Christian gentlemen.

“I look forward to working with them and their fellow trustees and the ERLC staff as we seek to continue to minister the Gospel of our Savior across our great land,” Land said.

In his May 9 statement, Land apologized “for the harm my words of March 31, 2012, have caused to specific individuals, the cause of racial reconciliation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The five-part, two-page apology followed a May 2 meeting when Land met with 11 other SBC leaders, including several prominent African American pastors. As a result of the meeting, which lasted nearly five hours, Land said, “I have come to understand in sharper relief how damaging my words were.”

For the Baptist Press story on Land's May 9 apology, which includes the full text of the apology, go to www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=37795.

Among those in attendance May 9 were Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans; James Dixon Jr., president of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention and senior pastor of El-Bethel Baptist Church in Fort Washington, Md.; and K. Marshall Williams, chairman of the Southern Baptist African American Advisory Council and pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pa.

The ERLC trustee executive committee that issued the reprimands and broadcast termination is led by Richard D. Piles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Camden, Ark. Piles, on May 21, replaced Steve Faith as ERLC trustee chairman after Faith, a retired pastor and director of missions from New Albany, Ind., resigned citing a need to assist his local church that is currently without a pastor.

In addition to Piles, other members of the ERLC executive committee are Donald L. Mason, a Georgia layman; Stephen W. Long, a director of missions in Ohio; Christopher L. Slaughter, a West Virginia layman; and Stephen G. Veteto, a Colorado seminary educator. The committee includes the ERLC trustee officers and the chairmen of the trustees' three subcommittees.

On May 9, Faith followed Land's apology with a statement that the ad hoc investigative committee was working “with due diligence and will bring a thorough and complete report to the ERLC Executive Committee who will prayerfully consider the findings. The ERLC Executive Committee will bring a report to the full board of trustees and then release a public statement by June 1.

“It is important to understand that our Southern Baptist polity places Dr. Land under the authority of the ERLC trustees who are elected by and accountable directly to the Convention,” Faith said. “The trustees are aware of their responsibility to the Convention and to the watching world.”

Additional Baptist Press reports on the controversy over Land's comments can be accessed at www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=37804; www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=37620; and www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=37619.

A bit of clarity

This is no silver lining but when the U.S. House of Representatives failed to ban sex-selection abortions in late May the issue of abortion in America became clearer. Democrats and Republicans voted on both sides of the bill that would make it illegal to “knowingly perform an abortion based on the sex of the child.” Knowledgeable observers say neither the Senate nor the president would have approved the measure if the House had.

Now we know this is not about women. Sex-selection abortions are done to prevent the birth of girl children much more often than to prevent the birth of boys.

Now we know that the “safe, legal, and rare” rubbish is simply that. Planned Parenthood, the enemy of life and now of women in America, “condemns any coercive reproductive policies.” That means any law that protects unborn life of any sort for any reason, any law that informs mothers of the stage of their baby’s life, any law that protects underage girls from ignorance and manipulation by a greedy industry, and any law that prevents cruel and bloody murder of an already viable child in the birth canal, is condemned by this “women’s health” company.

Now we know that the lives of some people in America are merely hypothetical and political to some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Now we know. 

A never ending story, at least so far

A panel sponsored by the Baptist 21 Network during our annual SBC meeting in New Orleans will feature a discussion on the Conservative Resurgence. The Resurgence was of course the effort between 1979 and 1995 to return our convention’s institutions to a commitment of biblical fidelity. That one sentence sums up one of the most incredible events in church history since the Protestant Reformation. Danny Akin, a classmate of mine at Criswell College and Southwestern Seminary, now serves as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and will be a participant on the panel. I listened to Dr. Akin’s short teaser video in which he refers to the condition of Southwestern when we both attended classes there around 1980. The reminder brings back memories of things most Southern Baptists would not believe. Danny and I attended classes under men who did not believe the Bible to be infallible or inerrant, we heard theologians and ethicists who could not affirm the uniqueness of mankind or the sanctity of human life—and Southwestern was one of the three most conservative of our six seminaries in that day. Things were absolutely and verifiably worse at three of our schools.

The miracle that panelists including R. Albert Mohler, Paige Patterson, Akin, and David Platt will be discussing is that a large, bureaucratically bound denomination could and did make a U-turn where so many other denominations split instead. It was a work of God and a blessing to the world that it happened. It’s still happening, actually.

Even late in the Resurgence timeline, the 1990s, a lot of resistance arose from state conventions. As the deliberations of our corporate body became more local, reform became more difficult. It makes sense. Reforming the 10 or so least conservative state conventions would be more than 10 times as difficult as reforming one national body. In those conventions, as in the SBC, educational institutions were often the flash point between more and less conservative people. And, as in the SBC only more so, the relationships between those denominational employees who had strayed and their longtime friends made difficult decisions nearly impossible.

Time passed, though. The seminaries that were largely responsible for the biggest problems in our state conventions began to have a different kind of influence. Bible-believing pastors began to shore up churches that weren’t sure what they were doctrinally. State leaders who mourned the relationships and influence they lost during the Resurgence began to retire; they have been often replaced by convictional inerrantists. And a thing we could never have imagined began to occur. Some of our Baptist colleges began the long journey home. Twenty years ago, I don’t remember anyone predicting that this was possible.

Incredible transitions have taken place at Louisiana College and at both Shorter College and Truett-McConnell in Georgia. More conservative colleges like Oklahoma Baptist, Houston Baptist, and Union University have found increased support for the direction they were already taking. Transformed denominational bodies bear like fruit among their entities. In some cases the theological accountability of a state convention has moved colleges to shield themselves from oversight. Mercer in Georgia and Belmont in Tennessee are two examples of this trend. Rather than risk becoming accountable to the churches that built, funded and otherwise supported them from the start, these schools went rogue and heterodox.

I remember when Southern, Southeastern and Midwestern Baptist Theological seminaries elected conservative presidents. Some faculty members resigned in protest, a few tried to hide behind tenure or word games to continue teaching but those institutions did come around. Those notable state Baptist colleges that have held to or returned to their heritage are a second-generation affirmation of the Resurgence and worth celebrating. They face some challenges though.

Money is a challenge. College education is shockingly expensive these days. Baptist schools are competing with all manner of educational institutions during a time when churches and state conventions are themselves struggling financially. The only possible reason for the continuation or support of Baptist Christian education is if it remains distinctly Christian. Becoming more like the non-Christian or formerly Christian academy (institutions that often make people worse) only argues against the need for the school that follows this path.

Transition is a challenge. At our seminaries that had the most tumultuous transition, the former leaders claimed (hopefully, I think) that credible scholars would not be available to replace the teachers that resigned or were forced out. For the short term, the seminaries struggled to find the right people, although now a generation of homegrown scholars has arisen to fill the positions. Scores of faculty have resigned in protest over the revival of our Baptist colleges. The colleges face the same struggle to fill key slots but have the advantage of seminaries that are already producing professors in some the most important disciplines.

Accountability is a challenge. One claim that those who cannot affirm either the doctrinal or morality statements of their Baptist university employers is that the board is changing the rules under which they were hired and have worked for years. In a sense this is true. How incredible it is when an employee who has admitted sexual misconduct for years is surprised to find that his Baptist school considers it a deal killer. That is the case at one Baptist school and we should be ashamed. The same can be said of professors who for years taught error regarding our faith. Some state conventions put up with it in the past and some still do. Reforming a college, or seminary, is not a one-time thing; it is an ongoing commitment. We will have this kind of destructive denominational cataclysm every generation or two or we will do the right thing regarding our institutions year by year.

Outrageous criticism is not a challenge. Websites like “save our [your school name here]” pop up whenever conservatives start to wake up around the country. They claim the buildings will fall down and that the physics department will teach that the Earth is flat. Blah, blah, blah, world without end. We lived through the same predictions in the 1990s about conservatives being anti-intellectual and by definition stupid. It’s so over the top that no one changes his mind because a former employee doesn’t like the new boss. They sue and nearly always lose. They discourage only donors and prospective students who already agree with their perspective.

We should cheer on our Baptist colleges in places and cases where they support the work and message of their constituent churches. Academic freedom, the imaginary right to teach whatever you prefer, is to a Christian secondary to the revealed Word of God that our churches preach each week. Schools that get that are a treasure and we should encourage them as we can. The return of a school to biblical fidelity is nothing less than the affirmation of the churches that built it and the Lord those churches serve. Genuinely Christian colleges swim upstream against an academic current that overwhelmingly teaches a pagan theology, however much materialists deny teaching any sort of theology.

These follow-on victories have another thing in common with our Southern Baptist Conservative Resurgence. The victory occurs when the institution repents. The SBC did the right thing, started down the right path, in 1979, even though it was nearly a decade later that it bore fruit in our institutions. If the Resurgence had failed, it would have still been the right thing to try. We have no guarantee that our newly or continually biblical Baptist colleges will overcome the challenges common to educational and denominational entities in our day. If one goes under, it is only a failure in our sight. The effort was nonetheless grand and righteous. Our call is to faithfulness rather than apparent success. The struggle to keep the entities our churches cooperatively support faithful is never ending. The details of the struggle may change but we are obligated to diligent oversight of the parachurch structure we build.

Hope to see you in New Orleans

Fats Domino sang the blues in his song “I’m Walking to New Orleans.” I’m glad I don’t have to walk to New Orleans, but I’m happy to be going this month. The Southern Baptist Convention gives me an excuse to visit one of my favorite cities. The food is incredible, especially the seafood. The people are warm and friendly. The Saints football team may have a little scandal going on, but they have been my favorite professional team even when they did not look like a pro team. New Orleans Seminary is where I received my master’s degree. The seminary is also where I forged some lifelong friendships. I love New Orleans.

This year holds a special treat. Fred Luter will be nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Fred is a faithful pastor. He refused to give up when Katrina scattered his flock. His passion for souls is unsurpassed. Fred has served the Southern Baptist Convention through the years. He is a powerful preacher. We’ve had the privilege of hearing him speak at some of our SBTC conferences through the years. All of these qualifiers make him a worthy nominee. What makes his probable election more significant is that he will be the first African American to serve as president. Inclusiveness is more than a word. It is a character trait that is seen through actions. Fred has my vote. He probably will not need it. He should be elected by acclamation.

Something makes every convention special to me. I am encouraged by the fellowship of likeminded believers. I find strength from others who share a common passion for the gospel. By working together we have the potential to embrace the unengaged at the ends of the earth. We have a window to make a difference. We need each other to make it happen.

There don’t appear to be many controversial issues on the docket this year. A convention name change is being presented in a less impacting way. The proposal calls for a descriptor to be used rather than a legal name change. If the motion is approved, SBC entities as well as others can refer to themselves as “Great Commission Baptists.” Of course churches have the right to do whatever they wish. All the Baptist churches I know exercise that right regularly.

Resolutions usually generate more heat than light. They do give us a snapshot of what the messengers think on crucial issues. Religious liberty is being threatened. We need to voice our concerns so we can continue with the freedom to embrace the unengaged. Maybe there will be a strong statement about our rejection of governmental intrusion on religious liberty.

There will be good preaching at the Pastors’ Conference. Texan Josh Smith will bring the Word. Nathan Lino, another Texan, will be nominated for first vice president of the SBC. There will be other participants from the Lone Star State. I encourage you to go if you can. Our SBC family is important.
I hope to see you in New Orleans. Drago’s oysters are almost worth the trip.

From homeless addict to theology student

DALLAS—One night six years ago, somewhere between Fort Worth and Dallas, Hal Benard Carouthers was hunkered down on all fours in the dirt behind orange barricade barrels and heavy equipment at a freeway road construction site, praying to God for a rescue. The dizzying blur of cars and trucks sped past, each emitting a loud “whoosh” and a blast of night air.

Still revving from a cocaine binge and unable to come down, he was insane, he recalled. He’s convinced of it. Inanimate objects were doing strange things back in Fort Worth, before he’d started his trek down the side of the freeway toward Dallas. The television was talking back to him.

He had tried to get sober by drinking himself down.

“But God wouldn’t let me fall asleep,” Carouthers said.

Somewhere along the asphalt, he broke, waving the white flag to the God who had been reminding him of a commitment he’d made as a teenager.

He’s been sober ever since that night.

He has the peace that comes with assurance, and is working out his salvation with gratitude, humility and submission.

Add to that a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies from Criswell College. He walked last month, and plans to enter a master’s degree program there this fall.

That night on the freeway is sketchy in his mind. With the kindness of strangers at the Fort Worth bus station—he doesn’t know how he got there—he ended up in Dallas at a shelter, then at Parkland Hospital, then to the familiar confines of the Union Gospel Mission.

Weeks went by with no relapses. Weeks turned to months. Carouthers was again attending the Bible studies he had attended before at places like Union Gospel and Dallas Life Foundation, where he participated in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. He began to own the faith he had embraced as a teenager, that moment at age 16 when he said the gospel sunk in and he said yes to Jesus.

“I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face,” Carouthers recounted from that moment in the early 1970s. But that joy would later give way to drugs and alcohol, times of sensing the pull of God, and then relapses into addiction. He enlisted in the Army at age 17, also serving stints in the Navy and Air Force. He would bounce between the civilian world and the military; his time as a civilian was wrought with missteps—a mixture of good paying jobs (he graduated from several trade schools) and then months of addiction and homelessness.

•••

Bill Thompson, director of the Union Gospel Mission, and Bobby Worthington, then the director of the AA and NA programs at Dallas Life Foundation, knew Carouthers. He’d been around, but this time was different.   

“Hal came to Dallas Life twice, I think, in the 90s and then later. He was in our Christ-centered 12-step program. He was there recovering from that and you know, the Lord did a work in his life,” Worthington recalled.

“The thing to remember,” Worthington added, “is that God can move in the hearts of the homeless and they be saved.” Sometimes, the changes are radical.

Darren Larkins, who was converted at Dallas Life’s inner-city chapel, is in the master’s program at Criswell also.

“You don’t get to see that all the time but God does allow you to see it some of the time,” Worthington said.

Years ago as a Criswell College student himself, God placed the homeless of east Dallas on Worthington’s heart, he said. Now an adjunct professor of evangelism at the school and director of its urban missions and encounter missions programs, Worthington continues to see the homeless as a mission field.

Worthington keeps in touch with Carouthers, encouraged him to enter the master’s program in the fall and is scheduled to serve on Carouthers’ ordination council this summer.

“As a professor you are mentoring students in the classroom and outside of the classroom, and you get these rewards,” Worthington said. “To see him go through the struggles and the change that God has brought in his life, it just means a lot to me. It means a lot to me to be able to go to his ordination service. That’s just the spirit of God working in his life.”

The decision to go to Criswell was slow coming.

“One of the chaplains told me, ‘You need to get started on what God has for you to do because you may not be able to even finish it.’ Dr. Bill Thompson told me, ‘You are getting older and you will want to be able to minister effectively.’”

Thompson was the one who pushed for Carouthers to enter Criswell College. Once there, Carothers was pleasantly surprised, he said, to see a familiar face in Worthington teaching there.

“I was going to serve God no matter what,” Carouthers said. “Criswell had been burning in my mind and for the first time in my life I knew that was where God would have me be. Dr. Worthington encouraged me and made himself available to me, as did several other of the professors.”

Mentors such as Worthington, James Bryant, Daniel Streett and David Brooks challenged him, cheered him on, made sure he had what he needed.

“How you doin’, Hal?” Brooks would ask. “You need anything?”

“Hanging in there,” he’d respond.

“Well, you are hanging well,” Brooks would quip.

“Those professors kept me going,” Carouthers recounted.

It was during Streett’s Greek classes—taught by a language immersion method—that Carouthers recalled hitting an academic wall. Streett and Brooks have Ivy League degrees. Carouthers, with some community college under his belt, was feeling overwhelmed, he said.

“I realized the Holy Spirit was developing my inner man to do those things that he would have me to do. When things got difficult in Greek, for instance, and I got to a point where it was really heavy on me and I felt like I couldn’t go any further, I knew to lean on the Holy Spirit and not on me. I was obedient to continue studying until I found myself making really good grades because I kept my mind on Christ and not on what I could do. I give credit to the Holy Spirit.”

Through it all, Carouthers was being immersed in Scripture and the way of Christ. Two years ago he began teaching a men’s Sunday School class at the Bible church that meets at Union Gospel. Carouthers has also preached there.

With 140 additional beds planned at the mission, Carouthers is hoping to be added as a paid chaplain. In the meantime, he will continue his theological education at Criswell.

Carouthers eventually wishes to pastor a church, he said.

“It’s because of God that I graduated, and he did that for his purposes and his kingdom. And I don’t think he’s through. I have high expectations of being used. But if he didn’t do anything else for me, I’m happy and content.”

Revival at Hermleigh church began with kids

A year ago, Central Baptist Church in Hermleigh—100 miles southeast of Lubbock—no longer needed all 144 seats in their auditorium. Only a dozen or so faithful members were coming each Sunday, so a third of the space had been taken over for storage.

Then a steady stream of children and teenagers began accepting invitations from friends to attend a discipleship program on Wednesday nights, and their parents took notice. Young adults who had given up on church began returning and inviting other families.

With 20 baptisms since Thanksgiving and a crowd that surpassed 130 in late May, now the congregation needs every available seat.

“Our church is experiencing revival,” said Pastor T.J. Harkness. “Every single day I get a phone call of a new story of God working with these young adults.”

“We were such a small church, but we are growing so rapidly,” shared Alan Celoria, a retired music evangelist who works with the youth along with his wife, Jan. They were used to teaching a few teenagers in Sunday School. Now there are over 25 attending on Sunday mornings and around 50 on Wednesday nights.

“All of a sudden, God is doing big things in a small place,” he told the TEXAN.

In the remote West Texas town of around 400 people, Harkness set forth a big challenge, Celoria recounted. “God gave him a vision that we were going to see the church packed.”

Church members were enlisted to help with a growing youth ministry and provide transportation home for those who visited. Couples took turns cooking breakfast for students on Sunday morning.

“The approach was to do everything we possibly could to bring these kids in no matter what their motivation so that we could feed them the Word of God,” Harkness said.

Avenue D Baptist Church in Snyder offered the Hermleigh church a 15-passenger bus to transport more children and youth. Young adults began visiting the church as they saw changing habits of their children.

“They started going on Wednesdays and then on Sunday mornings and started asking if we’d go,” recalled Beatrice Thompson.

“Some kids you have to force to go to church, but I started noticing they’d want to get up and go on Sunday mornings,” she added.

“They would come home and tell us what they learned and then we were learning from it,” Beatrice said. That caught her by surprise. “I told my husband we ought to go and check it out.” Once they went, they were hooked, she recalled. “You can tell that they care about God by the way they treat you.”

As an interracial couple, the Thompsons felt uncomfortable with the reception they received while visiting other churches. “Here they don’t look at you that way,” she stated. “They see you as a person. That’s when you know these are people who are really into God.”

The pastor welcomed Rodney and Beatrice when they walked forward at a worship service to ask how to join the church and in the process realized they first needed salvation.

Celoria recalled how the Thompsons’ children began noticing a difference in their parents following their decisions to follow Christ. “Their three older children came to us and said something has happened to our family and we want that too.”

After the 11-year-old publicly professed her faith in Christ, two siblings followed and Beatrice quizzed them to make sure their decisions were sincere. “Pastor T.J. had a real good sermon on things that made sense to them and I could tell they were paying attention. They felt it in their hearts and I knew it was the real thing,” she added.

“The next Sunday we all got baptized—the whole family,” Beatrice shared, “except my baby,” she said, referring to their 3-year-old. “Her time will come.”

Thirteen-year-old Tommy Haynes showed such enthusiasm for the Team Kids program that it made his mother curious. “He had never been a church-goer and so I was really shocked,” shared Misty Haynes. “I said, ‘Tommy, if you love it so much, I might give it a try.’”

Through the invitation of their friends, Tommy and his brothers began attending and soon their mother followed. “I just absolutely loved it the first time. I felt so welcome and so at home.”

When the pastor stopped by their home to talk with Tommy and his brother Dylan about their decision to become Christians, Misty began asking questions to gain assurance of her own salvation years earlier.

“In talking to her,” Harkness said, “Toby realized he hadn’t made a decision at all so I explained the gospel to both of them.”

“I had no clue that my husband didn’t feel he was baptized for the right reason when he was younger,” Misty said. “He was ready to take his own step and do it for the right reason,” she added, recalling her husband’s profession of faith that night in their home. Haynes and the two sons were baptized April 29.

“What’s been going on in that church has been really amazing,” shared Michael Hildebrand. He and his wife, Tiffany, left a few years ago. “Some things happened that I didn’t agree with at the time. I didn’t trust God that his work was going on, but we were drawn back to the church by listening to what God was telling us,” he said.

Now he sees that the seeds for growth had been sown for years. “The youth group is growing outrageously and we’re getting more and more adults. They’re being drawn in by the kids,” he explained.

More than 150 people attended the May 26 service followed by lunch at the community center to share elements of Bible drill, Scripture memory and character study taught throughout the year on Wednesday nights. Half of the parents of the teenagers had never attended the church.

“We’re reaching people,” Celoria said. “The Word of God is taking hold so that when they share with their parents what’s going on in their lives, the parents come out of curiosity as the Holy Spirit draws them.” Celoria said. “Men are being saved and baptized. Entire families are getting reunited. It’s amazing.”

Long-time members have made good on their promise to follow the direction Harkness believes God is leading, he added, embracing an appeal to repair and renovate church facilities.

“They started seeing the growth with a younger generation of youth starving for God’s Word and their parents following and being baptized and put to work almost immediately,” Harkness said.

In fewer than 45 days, over $30,000 was given to more than cover the cost of materials and labor on the to-do list compiled by a church committee. “It’s just absolutely amazing to see this, especially as a young pastor serving in my first church,” Harkness said. “I’m absolutely humbled God chose me to be a part of this growth.”

He remembers the lessons he learned in patiently waiting on God while attending Jacksonville College, confident that God would bless his ministry even when that took him to a small, rural church with only a few dozen members when he arrived.

Even after the special service in May that attracted a record-breaking crowd, attendance held steady the next week with 96 people in worship and 76 in Sunday School.

Talking recently with her husband about the change in their lives, Beatrice Thompson said, “I can’t believe we’ve lived this long not knowing how good life is with God in your life, knowing you’re doing work now that is so much different, so much more. We didn’t realize how good it feels.”